All film, discursive, workshop and exhibition events of Animafest are in full festival mode as of today. In accordance with good tradition, the youngest viewers are the first in the cinemas – from 9:30 in Kinoteka they watch the Films for Children Competition 1, and then, hosted by Višnja Pentić, they ask demanding and surprising questions to the authors Ivan Dixon (Plumpin) and Yala Herbet (My Shadow and Me). Slightly older Animafest attendees will immediately enjoy the Films for Children Competition 3, where they will be joined by Myeongji Lee (Following: Momentary Appreciation of an Unrequited Love) and Lucía Aimara Borjas (Sailboat at the End of the Street), a Venezuelan author who has created her work under the auspices of Zagreb Film. Admission to the Films for Children and Youth Competition is free for all visitors, just like the screening of the program Baker Boris and Friends adapted for ages 4+ at NS Sesvete at 10 am, as part of the traditional Animafest in your neighbourhood.

The Kinoteka projectors will, however, take a break until 6 pm when the Grand Competition Short Film 5 will follow with the extraordinary Still Moving by Canadian-Chinese director Rui Ting Ji about the ‘mobile’ relationship between a mother and daughter who move away from the father of the family, Il burattino e la balena, a variation on Pinocchio by Italian doyen Roberto Catani, Marko Meštrović’s new film How, the Argentine animated novel about corporate archivists Don’t Look at Me by Sergio Falleti and Marcelo Iglesias, the romantic Cambodian horror Sisowath Quay (dir. Stéphanie Lansaque, François Leroy), which also incorporates the heritage of the local shadow theatre, and the comedies Hurikán (Jan Saska) and Fish-Thinking (Tobias Rud). The most attractive time slot in Kinoteka at 8 pm is reserved for the world premiere of the first feature film by Shunsaku Hayashi, a master of animated painting who, in his impressive Invisions (Monument), inspired by the great earthquake in the Tōhoku region and the Fukushima disaster in 2011, examines the relationship between the human body and the environment. After the screening, Hayashi-san will talk about his inspirations and work process.

At KIC at 9:30am, the 12th Animafest Scanner Symposium on Contemporary Animation will begin with an introductory lecture by the winner of the Award for Outstanding Contribution to Animation Studies, Georges Sifianos (“Animation and Ecology. From Phidias to Norman McLaren”). Later in the day, as part of a panel dedicated to the research of animation and ephemera in film and contemporary technological development in animation, presentations will be held by Kristina Schmiedl (Austria), Aurélie Petit (Canada), Andrijana Ružić (Italy), François Giard (Canada), Max Hattler (Hong Kong), Jiu Zi and Tongle Sun (China) and Edmunds Jansons (Latvia), all under the watchful eye of Nikica Gilić and Franziska Proksa. At the end of the first day of the meeting, the books Stampfer Dreams by Thomas Renoldner, Bring your Drawings to Life by Rastko Ćirić and Animation in Croatia. Zagreb School and Beyond by Midhat Ajanović will be presented in KIC at 5 pm. Along with the authors, the books will be presented by Boško Picula, Andrijana Ružić and Nikica Gilić. Also at KIC, but in the upstairs Gallery, the official opening of the exhibition Behind the Scenes 7 with the works of authors whose films were selected for the GC is scheduled for today at 1 pm, who will attend the opening in large numbers and address the public together with curator Paola Orlić and Animafest artistic director Daniel Šuljić. A little later, at 2:30 pm, in the Studio-gallery Klet, Behind the Scenes 7, but the one dedicated to the works of the authors of the Student Film Competition, will also be officially opened with the presence of young artists.

At the Museum of Contemporary Art, today at 5:30 pm, an introduction to one of the world’s most prolific animated cinema of the past decades begins. The third segment of ‘Focus on South Korea’ under the title ‘Who am I’ brings together works that raise questions of identity in the context of highly urbanised living (films by Erick Oh, Yungsung Song, Dahee Jeong, Junhe Kim, etc.). At 7 pm, the MSU will host a retrospective of the winner of the Animafest 2025 Lifetime Achievement Award, Michaela Pávlatová, with classics such as Tram, Repete and Words, Words, Words, 11 in total. The experience of the world of the great Czech animator is well complemented by a visit to the exhibition ‘Are You Listening to Me?’ at the Kranjčar Gallery, while the opportunity to meet her in person will be offered both at the finissage of the exhibition on June 7 at 2 pm and during a masterclass that will be held on the same day at 10 am at the MM Centre. A rerun of the film retrospective will also be held on Saturday, at 4 pm at the MM Centre.

Tuesday at the MM Centre begins at 2 pm with the third slot of this year’s theme programme ‘The World Is on the Edge’. Films about the terror of state apparatuses such as those filmed by Lotfi Achour (Blind Spot), Felix Weisz (Albert), Lucas Malbrun (Margarethe 89) and Ryszard Czekała (The Roll-Call) will be screened. At 4 pm we can get acquainted with the past quarter century of work of the Film University Konrad Wolf Babelsberg, winner of the Best Animation School Award. After the introductory words by Gudrun Krebitz, the following works will be presented: Daniel Sterlin-Altman (Carrotica), Marija Trigo Teixeira (Inside Me), Jalal Maghout (Have a Nice Dog!), Maria Steinmetz (The Changeling) and others, and Krebitz herself is represented by the film I Know You. The film excitement does not stop because at 6 pm World Panorama 1 starts, after which we talk to Ryo Orikas (Graffiti) and Bianca Toloi (Casca). MM Centre returns to ‘The World Is on the Edge’ at 8 pm, this time with the first segment dedicated to migration and refugees (works by Pablo Ballarín – A Border Guard and His Dog, Szymon Ruczynski – There Are People in the Forest, Capucine Muller – Dutchgaria, Marta Magnuska – The Other, and others). AFN Edu, a programme intended for mobility and international cooperation of animation students, will also start at 10 am at the MM Centre. As part of the same program, Varya Yakovleva, the winner of Animafest 2023 and the author of this year’s festival trailer and illustrations, will also give a workshop at the Zagreb Film Studio today.

The central festival cinema SC will open its doors today at 1 pm for the Student Film Competition 3, among which the following should be singled out: Sublime by a group of French authors, a fantastically designed satire on the exploitative nature of contemporary beauty imperatives, Floating by Jelena Milunović, a very personal representation of her father’s mental illness realised through imaginative visualisations, Beast by Andrea Miletić, a work about repressed intra-family emotions and tensions realised through a fine drawing aesthetic, Poppy Flowers by Evridiki Papaiakovou, created by drawing and scratching on a film strip, and dedicated to her mother and her worldview, and the engaged 09.01.berkovich by Anya Ryzhkova, a collage film about a theatre director – a victim of Putin’s regime. In fact, the entire afternoon of the festival Tuesday at SC is dedicated to students, as Student Competition 4 (3:30 pm) and 1 (5:30 pm) follow. The number four includes titles such as Between the Gaps by Martin Bonnin, about a protagonist whose thoughts, as well as the city he wanders through on the phone, are mediated by exceptional artistic sensibility, the poignant puppet film Hunting by Lea Favre about a young documentary filmmaker who becomes a victim of sexual harassment, the nostalgic love etude From Peter to Aida by our Petra Pavetić Kranjčec, the spectacular Trash by a group of authors and the comically sung Jeanne & Jean Jean by Thanys Martin. After the number one, we will be joined live by the authors of the films Overture (Jakub Hronský), Laute Stille (Lukas Brandstetter, editor and cinematographer of Lise Bayr’s film), Children of the Bird (Júlia Tudisco), Memory of a Displaced Body (Mariana Mendivil), Portrait of a Mute Man (Gabriella Sacco), The Singing of Birds and What Is Drifting Away (Lezhi Yu) and I Am a Flower (Ariel Victor Arthanto). Nino Kovačić will talk to the artists.

A Q&A session is also scheduled after SC’s prime time screening of the Grand Competition Short Film 2 with three world premieres at 8 pm, when, hosted by Kate Gugić, we will be addressed by Marta Reis Andrade (Dog Alone, world premiere), Mato Uljarević (Uroš, world premiere), Maida Srabović (Fačuk, world premiere), Corrie Francis Parks and Daniel Nuderscher (SKRFF), and Rachel Samson (Out for Ice Cream).